Official 2023 Chicago Cubs Season Thread Vol: (17-17)

There's been nothing but smoke, but no fire as of yet, but everyone and their brother is leaning Yu to the Cubs, but no idea on the cost as of yet, or when it could actually happen.

It seems he's the one holding everything up tho. If the Twins/Brewers can't get him to sign with them, pretty much just leaves us, and we won't up our offer enough for his liking.......yet.

Either way, Yu, Arrieta, Cobb, Lynn all left still, the Cubs will get at least one of them, someday. :lol:

Getting Yu would be a bonus however because we wouldn't lose a draft pick, and we would GAIN a 2nd rounder for Arrieta whenever he signs with someone.

Or, maybe they pull a Spring Training Fowler situation and bring Arrieta back at the last minute. Pitchers and catchers report within 3 weeks, things should start happening very soon.
 

  • [*]Baseball America recently wrapped up their prospect positional rankings, and the Cubs landed some names at four different spots …
    [*]Right-handed pitcher: Adbert Alzolay – arguably the Cubs’ top prospect, comes in as the 46th best right-handed pitching prospect in the game. And while that might not seem too great, note that former Cubs top pitching prospect Dylan Cease comes in just one spot ahead of him (given how highly we thought of Cease, that’s actually very nice company). Jose Albertos – arguably the Cubs’ second best prospect – comes in at number 62, Alex Lange comes in at number 66, Oscar De La Cruz comes in at number 68, Thomas Hatch comes in at number 80, and Jen-Ho Tseng comes in at 89. See? Lots of dormant pitching upside in this system – that’s 6 of the top 90 right-handed pitching prospects in baseball. (Sure, you wish a few more were in the top 20 or so, but perhaps that’s coming this year.)
    Click to expand...
 
6/126 for You, 21 AAV which is AWESOME.

Could get to 150 mil with incentives, but that requires multiple Cy Young's and that isn't gonna happen.

21 AAV, we keep our 2nd round pick, and we GAIN a second rounder when Arrieta signs somewhere.

We are safely below the luxury tax and that means we can chase Harper. :pimp: :pimp:

TheoGawd :pimp:
 
:nthat:

Finally bringing closure to the rotation.
Wonder if Jake would’ve took that type of deal, and even more concerning will any team offer him more.

Harper coming to the north side would be nuts!
In Theo and Jed we trust.
 
CP1708 said:
Theo and Jed are in Dallas meeting with Yu Darvish.

I'm not saying anything is done or signed, but it makes SOME sense. Signing Yu wouldn't cost us a draft pick, and when Arrieta signs elsewhere, we'd GAIN a 2nd round pick. That's very Theo.

Again, no idea if we'll get him, but the benefits behind it are solid.
Click to expand...


CP1708 said:
So.....the Cubs have signed a backup catcher. Someone to compete with Victor Carantini..........

Who also happened to be Yu Darvish's personal catcher in Texas. :nerd:

Could just be tryin to gain an edge to lure him, or, could be next David Ross?
Click to expand...


:pimp:
 
Yu R
Quintana L
Hendricks R
Lester L
Chatwood R

Morrow R
Edwards Jr R
Montgomery L
Strop R
Duensing L
Cishek R
Wilson L
Grimm R

Contreras R
Yu's catcher R

Rizzo L
Baez R
Russell R
Zobrist S
LaStella L
Bryant R

Schwarber L
Almora R
Happ S
Heyward L
 
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If Major League Baseball is in the age of the superteam, the Chicago Cubs are at least partially to blame. When they built their championship roster for 2016, the Cubs combined effective tanking with savvy offseason pickups to create one of the best baseball teams ever. But they were quickly succeeded by the Houston Astros, who won the following year using a very similar blueprint. Between the rise of the historically dominant Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers (who didn’t tank but mixed a great talent pipeline with outrageous spending) — to say nothing of the Cleveland Indians or New York Yankees — the Cubs were losing their cachet as a World Series frontrunner. They’d become victims of an era they helped touch off.

But Chicago took a big step in reversing that slide Saturday, inking starting pitcher Yu Darvish to a six-year deal worth $126 million. In doing so, the Cubs are climbing away from the no-man’s-land between the top contenders and the tankers, ensuring that Kris Bryant and Co.’s most cost-effective seasons are spent pursuing another championship.

Darvish remains one of the best pitchers in baseball, and he’s a major addition to the Cubs’ roster. Since Darvish came over to MLB from Japan as a 25-year-old, only 17 other pitchers have created more wins above replacement (two of his new teammates, Jon Lester and Jose Quintana, rank above him). Darvish has never been worth less than 3.5 WAR when he played a full season, and he contended for the Cy Young award in his first two years in the league.

His most recent few seasons have had their challenges. The Japanese sensation went down in 2014 with an injury that required Tommy John surgery, and the recovery period kept him out for the whole 2015 season. Then, amid concerns over whether he was tipping his pitches, Darvish put up the worst numbers of his career in ERA and fielding-independent pitching in 2017. And he struggled in his postseason stint with the Dodgers, posting two of his worst starts ever.

But that didn’t deter the Cubs from signing him — nor should it have. Setting small-sample-size concerns aside, Darvish was one of the best free agents available, and he projects as one of the top 20 starters in baseball. Acquiring him at the relatively paltry price of $21 million per year is one of the best bargains of the anemic 2018 offseason. For reference, FanGraphs projected going into the winter that Darvish would get a five- or six-year deal worth between $24 and $28 million per season. But thanks to one of the slowest free-agency periods in recent memory, Chicago ended up landing a top ace for much less money than anyone would have expected

Darvish complements a Cubs rotation that may become one of the best in the league again. According to FanGraphs’ projections, Chicago now has the third-best rotation in the game, trailing the first-place Dodgers by less than two WAR.

That represents a big improvement over last season, when the Cubs’ starters had slipped to 10th in the majors in WAR. One of the keys to Chicago’s 2016 World Series run was having the third-best rotation in the game, but the next year saw an across-the-board drop-off in performance from the Cubs’ big four of Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Jake Arrieta and John Lackey, which played a large role in Chicago’s championship hangover. The additions of Darvish, Tyler Chatwood and 2017 trade-deadline pickup Quintana ought to help Cub pitching bounce back.

And perhaps most importantly, Darvish inches the Cubs back toward the top of the MLB heap, in addition to giving them a leg up in what looks like a tough division (which features two of the few teams that have made a lot of offseason noise, the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers). Before the signing, Chicago was projected for 47.7 WAR by FanGraphs — not much more than the Cubs’ archrival Cardinals. After the deal, that number moved up to 50.1 WAR. It might not sound like much of a difference, but in baseball, incremental improvements can pay big dividends at the high end of the talent spectrum. Once a team’s projected win total reaches the mid-90s — and 50.1 WAR translates to about 98 wins over a full season — each additional win is worth nearly 1 extra percentage point of World Series probability.

The benefit could be even greater in a season like the one 2018 is shaping up to be. We gathered preseason win forecasts Averaging together Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA with Vegas’s over/unders.

for each season since 2005, tracking how often teams were projected to finish with a given number of victories. From 2005 to 2017, an average of 17.4 of MLB’s 30 teams were predicted to win between 80 and 94 games each season, with 0.7 teams projected to post a better record and 11.9 projected to do worse. This season, however, only 12 teams are in that 80-to-94-win bucket, versus 4 teams above and 14 below. Baseball’s class of decent-but-not-great teams seems to have given way to clubs that are either going all-in or punting on the season entirely. In a season like this, that middle ground — where the Cubs were tracking to be — would be the worst place to find yourself.

But after signing Darvish, the Cubs officially moved closer to the front-running Astros and Dodgers in the projections than to the next tier of teams (which includes the Indians, Yankees, Nationals and Red Sox). They prevented themselves from being left behind in MLB’s superteam arms race, and they did it for a relatively cheap sum. Although the landscape of baseball has changed a lot since Chicago won it all in 2016, the 2018 version might bring back memories of that star-studded Cubs team.
 
Yu's contract

2018 25 M
2019 20 M Opt Out after the season
2020 22 M
2021 22 M
2022 19 M
2023 18 M

If he opts out after 2019, we would have to add 3 Mil to our Tax payroll in 2020. (The 21 AAV would be 22.5 at that point, so add 1.5 for each year to get the 3 mil number)
 
CP1708 said:
Yu's contract

2018 25 M
2019 20 M Opt Out after the season
2020 22 M
2021 22 M
2022 19 M
2023 18 M

If he opts out after 2019, we would have to add 3 Mil to our Tax payroll in 2020. (The 21 AAV would be 22.5 at that point, so add 1.5 for each year to get the 3 mil number)
Click to expand...

Not a bad contract all things considered. He also has a limited no trade clause as well.

"Darvish gets a full no-trade clause for the first two years, and then a 12-team no-trade list after that"
 
Screenshot_20180213-134208.jpg






 
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I don't know what the point of posting those pics was but......

IDGAF!! That man meant soo much to the city, team, and baseball in general.
He can bleach his skin neon green and I'd still hold in him in the same regard.

Ricketts' is talking out his @ss demanding that Sammy come clean.
ABOUT WHAT?!?!?!
He don't owe anyone a damn thing! Let alone some half-assed explanation, just so they can hold it over him.
GIVE THAT MAN HIS DUE!!! Retire his number and embrace him.
 
Theo:

“If you look at our needs, knock on wood if we can stay healthy and productive for the most part through our roster, everybody’s back and for the next few years. We shouldn’t have tremendous needs. But we have some work to do to make sure we’re in position to be able to pounce if a certain great fit or just the right special player happens to become available, or somebody wants to be in Chicago and something becomes too good to turn down, too impactful or too good to deal would mean too much to the team, we just have to work hard to get in position to do that."
Click to expand...

Geeee, I wonder who he could be talking about.....
 
Even with adding Yu, we still have around 12-13 mil in space under the luxury tax bill. SOME of that will be spoken for in terms of bonuses, Playoff shares, etc, so in a sense, it's more like 9-10 mil, but that is built in for the trade deadline, we would be able to add some salary at the deadline if someone becomes available that can help us. That means that Theo will indeed make a move or two if needed near the deadline, and that's awesome for us. :pimp:
 
sportsjunkie said:
i have a gut feeling. Arrieta pulls a Dexter Fowler
Click to expand...

I can't see it.

1, we already have 5 starters AND Monty as our "6th"
2, Jake wants a brinks truck full of money, and we can't offer him anywhere close to that, MAYBE 9-10 million and that's less than he made before.
3, SOMEBODY will offer him more than that, just to make absolutely sure he couldn't come back to us like Fowler. No way in hell the Brewers or Cardinals would just sit back and watch us get him for free when they have plenty more money/room to offer him. Even if he wanted to come back to us, the Brewers could offer him 100 mil over 4-5 years and that's more than we can afford since we are resetting for Harper next year.
 
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